Alabama Execution Set For Thursday Night

Carrie Doyle | June 11, 2017, 9:25

Alabama Execution Set For Thursday Night

The state has urged the 11th Circuit to let the execution proceed.

The original story continues below.

Lawyers for a condemned Alabama inmate have filed a stay of execution with the U.S. Supreme Court. The brief order was issued by [AL report] Justice Clarence Thomas and noted that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer opposed the decision.

Melson and other inmates are trying to appeal the judge's dismissal. "It creates the illusion of a peaceful death when in truth, it is anything but", Melson's attorneys wrote in a filing to the Alabama Supreme Court.

The Alabama attorney general's office had asked for the execution to proceed arguing the U.S. Supreme Court has upheldMidazolam's use and allowed other executions to proceed using it. Some states have turned to the sedative as other lethal injection drugs became hard to obtain.

'I was the first one in, and the other three were behind me.

Melson's attorney argued that midazolam does not anesthetize an inmate, but they look still, because a second drug, a paralytic, prevents them from moving.

Her family issued a statement saying that three young people lost their lives for "a few hundred dollars" and criticized court filings on behalf of Melson that challenged the state's execution procedure as inhumane. That temporary stay was granted last Friday before being struck down Tuesday by SCOTUS.

Alabama is preparing to execute an inmate for the shooting deaths of three fast food restaurant workers during a 1994 robbery.

As the restaurant was closing at about midnight, Melson and another robber forced four employees to remove cash from the restaurant safe and then ordered them into a freezer, court documents said.

Peraita was identified by Archer. Later, he was sentenced to death for his participation in the 1999 killing of Quincy Lewis at #Holman Correctional Facility.

According to a spokesperson for Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday, the governor received a request for clemency from Melson.

They argued Alabama's use of the sedative Midazolam violated the eighth amendment statute against cruel and unusual punishment.

Alabama inmate Ronald Bert Smith heaved and coughed during the initial 13 minutes during his 34-minute execution in December. At times his left eye also appeared to be slightly open. Collins' mother and two sisters witnessed the execution. "[Melson] has to have to live every day with knowing what he did".

Archer will not attend the execution, he said, because of a previously planned vacation with his wife and children. 23 hours a day in a cell.